Part  II of The Post-Finals Paintball Crisis

Inspired by Community S2E23: "A Fistful of Paintballs."

Piper POV

The sun went down long ago. Piper wants to assume that most of the enemy players went home to sleep and take care of themselves, but paintball knows no mercy. They're out there somewhere, she just knows it.

Annabeth stops the group behind a bush. "No cameras, no lights... perfect," she notes to nobody in particular. She sits down on the concrete and leans back, disregarding the pointy holly bush leaves clinging to her hair and clothes.

The others join her in the temporary hiding spot. "So," Frank says. "Can we all make up and be friends again?"

"No," everyone says simultaneously.

"Oh, c'mon! We're like a family. Families fight sometimes, and then they make up!" he adds, which doesn't help his case. He needs to shut up or else everyone will know about his crush on Hazel.

"I'm filing for independence from this family," says Jason.

"I'm an orphan," Leo adds.

"Oh. Shit." Frank looks at the ground.

Leo shrugs. "You didn't know."

"You didn't mean that, did you?" Percy asks Hazel. "About leaving the study group?"

"Nico and I already signed up for a biology class together," Hazel says.

Piper doesn't like the idea of having a study group without her. Frank's sure to follow her out, then Jason will get all guilty and join them, and Piper won't know whether to stay with Annabeth and the others or leave to be with Jason. She wants to say otherwise, but she knows she wouldn't be able to choose and just end up alone in the end. Ugh, then her parents would get on her about transferring to a college in Oklahoma, then they'd be on her about commuting from the reservation, and then? They'd probably force her to drop out altogether and become an actress—no—a model. Goodbye independence.

So if she gets a say, Piper would prefer for Hazel to not quit the study group, thank you very much.

Oh. They're all looking at her now. Piper's the one with the charmspeak, figuratively speaking. If anyone can talk Hazel into staying, it's her.

The only problem is Piper doesn't know what she can say right now that's helpful to their cause. Sure, Hazel screwed up by giving into their childlike perception of her, but the rest of the group screwed up by creating that perception in the first place.

Piper chooses her words carefully. "I hope you'll change your mind, but even if you don't, you've always got a place with us."

Hazel raises an eyebrow, as do several of the others. This wasn't the answer they expected, but in all honesty, it was the best one. "Thank you very much, Piper," Hazel says.

It's quiet, except for Percy tearing open a package of gummy sharks.

It's too dang quiet.

"No! Please! I'll do anything!"

"Octavian," Piper scowls. "I thought we shook him back in the library."

"Yeah, right. The Hunters should have got him by now," Annabeth says.

"Please! I didn't mean to-"

"Put your hands above your head!"

Jason knits his eyebrows. "That sounds like Zoë Nightshade."

Piper can't help but peek over the holly bush. "Oh. My. God."

"What is it?" Leo asks.

The Hunters have Octavian blindfolded and facing a wall with his hands tied behind his head. He's trembling so hard that Piper can see it from over here. Of course, anyone would be scared shitless if a whole row of Hunters had paintball guns aimed at his back.

"It's an execution," says Piper.

"Fu- I mean... dang. Gosh dangit," says Annabeth, who doesn't think this predicament is worth her one F-bomb.

"Should we do something?" Piper asks. "I mean, I hate the guy, but he's uh..."

"He's what?" Jason asks.

"I think he just pissed himself."

Everyone winces.

"I wish I was kidding," Piper adds.

Annabeth looks over Piper's shoulder. "They're distracted. Hazel, you're the best shooter. Think you can hit from here?"

"By the time I hit one, they'll know we're hiding here!" Hazel objects.

"That's fine," says Annabeth. "Everyone else spread out. Percy and Jason to the left. Piper and me to the right. Frank, can you climb that tree?"

Frank shrugs. "One time, my grandmother's cat got stuck in a tree, so I climbed up and got it down."

"Oh, that's so sweet of you, Frank!" Hazel says.

"In case you were wondering, the fire department doesn't do cat rescues like they do on television."

"What about me, Annabeth?" Leo asks.

Annabeth gives him a finger gun. "Do whatever it is you do best."

Piper follows Annabeth towards the right side of the dark quad, crouching behind the dumpster outside the dining hall. She almost gags at the smell of the food when it's on her plate, so it doesn't smell much worse in the garbage.

"Now?" Piper asks.

"Wait for it..." Annabeth says, lining herself up like a track runner. Didn't she run track in high school or something? Piper can't remember.

"What am I waiting for?"

"Hazel's signal."

"Which is?"

Pop!

"Hey, what the hell?" Thalia reaches for her back and gasps when she sees her hand covered in orange paint. "Someone's gonna pay for this!"

The other Hunters turn around, but they're too late. They didn't even see Annabeth run out from behind the dumpster.

Frank drops out of the tree, but he doesn't land on his feet, instead flattening that new pledge, Bianca, beneath his hockey player weight.

"You're crushing me!" she shouts in a squeaky voice.

"Sorry," Frank says before shooting the ground next to her, so she only gets splashed with paint. How sweet.

"Sharknado!" Jason and Percy shout for some reason and start shooting back-to-back, scattering the Hunters.

"Guys? Execution?" Octavian asks, still blindfolded.

Zoë slips in a puddle and collides with Phoebe.

Leo rushes in to steal their guns, which are better quality than his anyway.

Pop-pop!

"Ha! You're out!" he shouts.

One by one, hunters go down. Jason and Percy's weird-ass Sharknado maneuver is working, Annabeth, Piper, and Leo shoot Hunters as they scatter, and Hazel catches any possible escapees from a distance.

Leo takes off his bandana and wipes the sweat from his forehead. "Is that everyone?"

"I think so," Percy says.

Something's not right. This plan worked out way too well. Nothing ever goes this well for Piper, not even an assault.

"Octavian's getting away!" she shouts, following his muddy footprints across the sidewalk and down the uneven concrete steps.

Jason trips over the last step. "Stupid defensive architecture!" he shouts.

Maybe the others help him up, and maybe they don't. Piper's mission right now is to go after Octavian.

She reaches down her shirt for the last of her ammo.

No. No, no, no!

She runs back up the steps and swipes Jason's gun. "Be right back!"

"Piper, he's bleeding!" Hazel shouts.

Jason's only an afterthought at this point. Where's Octavian?

"Gotcha." Piper follows him into the Janus building—the history department.

Piper can't keep from shivering even though she isn't cold. The lights are flickering so much, that she can't see the dead cockroaches stuck up in them anymore. She must not have noticed that when she went with Jason to turn in the final project for mythology yesterday.

Oh no.

The final straw for Hazel would be a destroyed diorama for sure. She put so much effort into the scenery. Her hair was covered in glitter for weeks. Nobody deserves that. Oh, god, she brought that into Nico di Angelo's apartment.

So one peek at the diorama won't hurt anything.

The door to the mythology classroom creaks open with one soft push. Piper always thought the weird artifacts and posters on the walls were weird, but they're downright creepy in the dark. This vase kind of looks like a small child, and that sword looks pointier than usual.

The headlight from a car passing by outside illuminates a shield hanging from the wall, and the face of Medusa practically sends Piper into an out-of-body experience. It's too bad she can't see her butterfingers drop Jason's paintball gun.

It's just a shield. It's just a shield in a dusty Greek and Roman Mythology 111 classroom.

Piper gasps ever so slightly. This is not happening. There is not a gun against her back. She tries to grasp her gun, only she dropped it. That's not a good omen.

"Who are you?" she asks even though she knows very well who's at the other end of this gun.

"Turn around," a woman's voice says.

So Piper does, hoping that maybe she'll be spared because looking for a diorama that was due yesterday is an incredibly lame way to lose at paintball.

Any other distinct features this woman might have are hidden by her bandana and her pirate hat, but it doesn't matter because her eyes are stunning, more so than the replica of the Aegis shield Mr. Brunner has hanging from the wall. This woman—the Praetor—has eyes darker than any black hole Piper learned about in her astronomy class, but these don't look cold and soul-sucking. No, they're warm and inviting, like a cup of hot chocolate and a cozy library on a snow day, which is weird because Piper usually spends her snow days outside skiing or building ice forts until her lips turn blue-

"Don't shoot!" Jason yells.

Leo, holding only one gun now that he gave his other to Jason, stands at the front of the classroom, ready to fire at the Praetor.

Piper gets one last look at those eyes before the Praetor spins around, whacking Piper in the face with her long braid. She aims her gun at Jason and fires.

Pop!

Pop-pop-pop!

"Blanks?" Piper asks. "Jason, you loaded your gun with blanks?"

"I didn't! Swear!"

"Guys, stop fighting!" Leo shouts.

"Jason, what if I caught up with Octavian?"

"You stole my gun and you didn't catch up to him? Piper, this is life or death!"

"No, it's paintball!"

Leo covers his ears. "Please! Shut up!" He starts to bang his head against the wall.

"Oh, look what you've done!" Piper yells. "Leo, it's okay. Please don't hurt yourself."

"I'm sorry we fought, bro. Try to calm down," Jason says. "Take your mask off and get some deep breaths in."

Leo stops hitting his head. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault," says Jason.

"Yeah, we shouldn't have shouted like that," Piper adds.

"There you are!" Percy shouts. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," says Piper. "It's fine."

Annabeth raises an eyebrow. "You sure?"

"Let's just go get that stockpile," Piper snaps.

Annabeth throws her hands up in defense. "Oh-kay then!"

✎✎✎

Piper thought there'd be more to this. Take out the competition, be quick and painless, and split the prize. So where's that competition at? The Praetor couldn't have taken out all of them, could she have? That sure would make Piper and her slowly decaying study group's job easier, but it probably defeats that 'quick and painless' goal. She sincerely doubts the Praetor is one for gentleness.

So with all that in mind, Piper's in denial when facing the door to the dean's office.

"Somebody pinch me," Percy says. "Ow! Not that hard, Annabeth!"

Annabeth pushes her way to the front of the group and pulls a bobby pin out of her hair. "Do you want to do the honors, Piper?"

Wow. The last time they broke into the dean's office was so long ago, that she didn't even think of it at first. Those were much simpler times, breaking into the dean's office to show Hazel a fake penis.

Piper takes the bobby pin from Annabeth. "Take me back. Let's not get caught this time though." She wiggles the bobby pin around in the keyhole and then, "Open Sesame." The door opens, practically on its own. It's like this ammo wants to be found.

Leo rubs his hands together maniacally. It baffles Piper how his energy is always at a hundred. "Oh yeah. Come to Papa," he says.

There are a lot of creepy Flex Seal advertisements being stored in here with the ammo. The wall in front of Piper is covered in posters with slogans like "fix a lot of damage!" on them, while others are full-on cardboard cutouts of Phil Swift.

"Wow, ammo and the advertisement materials?" Jason cleans his glasses to get a better look at a Flex Shot pamphlet. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I kind of feel bad for Dean D."

"Yeah, it must feel very claustrophobic in here," says Hazel.

Annabeth rolls her eyes. "Really? After all the crap he put us through? Does nobody remember the rocket simulation that almost got us killed? Or-"

"Hey, Annabeth?" Leo asks.

"What?"

"Could I please have your one allotted F-bomb?"

"No. Why?"

Leo tilts one of the crates on its side for everyone to see its contents: many, many rolls of Flex Tape.

Leo looks at Jason.

Jason looks at Piper.

Piper looks at Frank.

Frank looks at Percy.

Percy looks at Annabeth.

"Someone has to say it," says Frank. "That's a lot of damage." He does not look excited.

Annabeth looks at Hazel and crosses her arms. "What's this about a stockpile of equipment? Guns, ammo, paint grenades, anything we could think of, right?"

"I... I might have been mistaken," Hazel squeaks.

"Hazel," says Percy. "How did you find out there was ammo in here?"

"I knew! I promise!"

"Who told you about the ammo?" Jason asks.

A can of Flex Seal rolls into Piper's foot. "This one's full of Flex stuff too!" Leo calls.

Hazel rambles on, desperately trying to cover her mistake. "I saw the crates in the video and I just thought... Oh, you all must hate me now. I swear, I didn't know!"

"You've said that," Piper says.

"I just wanted to fix things! Nobody's having fun with this game!"

"Hmm, well, let me think on that one," Piper quips. "Leo and Annabeth and I have this nice alliance going, right? We're kicking some Hunter ass, and then we're kidnapped by Jason, Percy, and Frank. You weren't into that, were you Leo? Annabeth?"

Leo wrings his hands. "Well, I guess I was having more fun then."

"I did have a plan..." Annabeth scratches her neck.

Piper turns her attention back to Hazel. "So they take us back to your evil lair thing, and you've got this plan! Only your plan sends us straight into a line of fire, while you hid behind a bush. Sound familiar, anybody?"

Hazel starts to object, "Hey, that's not-"

"Fair?" Piper finishes. "Neither is not giving us the equipment or manpower to take down the Hunters and Octavian without sending Jason face-first down the stairs. Speaking of, how does your head feel, Jason?"

Even though he doesn't seem to want to engage, Jason says, "My head feels alright, but I'm worried about my wrist. I'm gonna just..." He reaches into the dean's minifridge and retrieves a Diet Coke, which he presses against his swollen wrist.

"That answers that," Piper continues. "I almost got eliminated back in the history building, and then Leo... had a moment... Don't you see how bad this is?"

Hazel backs up. "I didn't mean to hurt anybody. I just thought-"

"You just thought what? You were going to quit the study group anyway."

"I don't want to! Don't you ever think about how I feel when you don't invite me to watch R-rated movies with you and Annabeth? Did you know that I have a fake ID too? Yeah, I like to sneak a beer now and then!" Hazel shouts.

Okay, so clearly, Piper hit a sore spot. Maybe she should have been mindful of Hazel when planning her 50 Shades of Gray marathon for girls' night. Maybe she should have paid better attention when Hazel gushed over something Frank did.

"Listen, everyone has some good points here," Percy says, trying to diffuse the situation.

"Especially Piper," says Annabeth.

"But I don't want Hazel to quit our study group," Frank says.

"She didn't have to lead us into multiple ambushes for nothing," Annabeth says.

It's too late to fix her mistakes now, isn't it?

"Let's settle this like pirates then," Jason says from the floor. He swaps his Diet Coke out for a colder one, not caring to elaborate.

"Uh, bro," Percy says. "You're not even dressed up."

"I am too!" Jason gestures to his blue and white striped shirt and red khaki pants. "I'm Mr. Smee from Peter Pan! I had a bandana, but it was putting too much pressure on my head."

Percy rolls his eyes.

"What do you mean, 'settle this like pirates?'" Hazel asks.

Jason takes a sip of Diet Coke while icing his wrist. "I mean a duel."

"You want to duel me?"

"No," says Jason. "Piper should be the one to do it."

Piper should let this go, but everyone's looking to her to stand up for them. Well, Frank isn't but when has Frank ever sided against Hazel?

"Fine," Piper says to her friends' expecting faces. "I challenge you to a duel," she says, no emotion behind her words.

Hazel also sounds like she's reading lines from a script. "I accept your challenge."

✎✎✎

"Clear out!" Hazel yells to her crew back at Fort Levesque—no, the dining hall. Piper needs to go back to calling it what it is.

A couple of guards struggle to push the ice cream cart out of the way but decide to leave it in the middle of the battlefield when Hazel gives them a death glare.

Percy grabs a Choco Taco and rests his elbow against the abandoned ice cream cooler. "So we're doing this. Just fire on three?"

"Nah," Leo says. "You gotta do ten paces all dramatically like in a movie."

Piper loads her gun with fresh ammo. "I'll shoot from over here." She plants herself just in front of a small campfire, noting the massive hazard right there in the middle of the floor. If she steps back too far, she'll be stopping, dropping, and rolling to Timbuktu.

Jason shows Hazel where to stand, just in front of the window overlooking the outdoor picnic tables where they shared so many meals as friends.

Don't let those thoughts throw you off your game, Piper tells herself. Friends don't duel each other pirate-style. Piper and Hazel are about to duel each other. Therefore, Piper and Hazel are not friends. It's called the Transitive Property. She learned about it in her intro-level geometry course last semester. Thanks to that boring professor, Piper now has her math credit and the experience she needs to know that STEM is not for her.

Piper has all of June to finally declare a major. She only has a couple of minutes to somehow talk her way out of dueling Hazel and back into a friendly unproductive study group.

"We're a family, Hazel," Piper says. "I don't want to do this."

Hazel fills her gun with ammo and passes her hat to Frank. "It's too late. I'm taking biology with Nico next year."

Poor Nico. "I don't want you to leave. Hell, I don't even want to fight you," Piper says.

"You picked this fight a while ago. I'm not a little kid; we're the same age!" She stores her gun in her waistband and looks to Percy for a cue.

"Hazel, come on! We'll sign up for biology too if that's what you want."

"You're just afraid you'll lose because I'm the best shooter on the team."

Oh shit, she's right. A lump the size of a paintball bullet forms in Piper's throat as she remembers Hazel's perfect shot from across the quad. Piper's not a bad shot by any means, but she's no sniper.

Deep breath, that's it. "Fine then. Have it your way." Since she has no holster, Piper sets her gun on the cafeteria table behind her.

"Anybody got a bandana I can use?" Percy asks. "Anyone? Bandana? C'mon, we're all dressed as pirates. Somebody give me their- Oh, Annabeth, perfect-"

"This bandana is the one thing keeping my hair from going all barbarian pirate."

Percy squints. "Is that not what we're doing right now?"

Annabeth rolls her eyes. "Just use the parrot, dipshit."

"Okay," Percy says, raising his inflatable parrot in the air. "I'll count down from ten, and then you'll start... shooting at each other... I guess."

"Unless someone wants to forgive someone now so we can all finish this stupid fight and watch Sharknado at Percy's!" Jason shouts.

"Sharknado 5: Global Swarming," Percy adds.

Piper can't focus on the talk of movies now, no matter how enticing. She's got a duel to win. Hazel's going to pay for her dramatics, and come tomorrow, she's going to show up at Piper's for a trip to the mall and giggle outside the Hot Topic dressing room while they tease Annabeth about having sex with Percy. Annabeth doesn't know that she's going shopping tomorrow yet, but she'll thank Piper later, especially if Tristan McLean's credit card makes an appearance.

Hazel cracks her neck and narrows her eyes. "You hear that, Piper? There's still time to back out."

"No fu- I mean, no flipping way." Piper can't take the one allotted F-bomb away from Annabeth, even if the concept of a single word being so taboo is incredibly stupid.

"Great," Percy deadpans. Something tells Piper that Percy does not think this is great. "Ten, Mississippi... Nine, Mississippi..."

"Right for the middle, Pipes," Annabeth whispers. "Not like I'm taking sides or anything."

"Eight, Mississippi... Seven-shut-up-Wise-Girl-Mississippi..."

"Jesus Christ, Seaweed Brain, I'm just-"

"Six, Mississippi... Five, Mississippi..." Nobody's heart is in this fight, not even Piper's, and she's about to pull a gun on one of the best friends she's ever had. Sure, it's just paintball, but it doesn't feel right.

"Four, Mississippi... Three, Mississippi..."

New Rome Community College isn't a big campus. Piper is guaranteed to see Hazel on a weekly or maybe even a daily basis. Hell, it could be even more often if she chooses to take that biology class to fill that science credit she's been avoiding.

"Two, Mississippi..."

Piper wiggles her fingers and cracks her knuckles, hoping to get some blood flowing in her hands. Even though her rings cut off the circulation in her pinky finger, the motion gives her false hope.

"One, Missi- Oh!"

Piper regrets not raising her gun to the ceiling like in Hamilton, but with her luck, she's likely to shoot a light fixture and start a real fire. You know, the kind that would set off the sprinkler system if it even works.

There's a fire in Hazel's eyes as she draws her paintball pistol. No shit, Hazel Levesque isn't screwing around.

Piper fumbles for the trigger, fires, and then crouches down to avoid Hazel's shot. Something's missing though.

Hazel remains motionless as Piper's paintball bullet collides with the window, splashing paint all over the glass several feet away from her target. Ah, so she forgot to aim. Figures.

Realistically, Piper should lose this battle to Hazel. She's got good aim, and clearly, Piper just doesn't have what it takes to win this fight. Words and debates, she's great with, but something like this? Never in a million years.

However, New Rome Community College, the most realistic decision Piper has ever made, is no realistic college. This once again proves to be true when Frank and Jason duck to the ground, narrowly avoiding a round of green paintballs.

Piper whips her head around to the door. She should have known from the start that the Praetor would prove to be a bigger threat than anyone could have possibly anticipated. Any moment Piper thinks, "Oh, things couldn't possibly get worse," there she is.

Now, who is she? She can't compete if she isn't enrolled in at least one class here. Or maybe she can. Piper didn't get to listen to Mr. Brunner explain the paintball bylaws this year because of some ill-timed product placement.

"Hey, we've got a duel going on here!" Percy shouts.

In reply, the Praetor shoots the defenseless parrot off Percy's shoulder. With a sad squeak, the inflatable prop spills into a puddle on the floor. "No! Sharkbait!" Percy cries.

"Nobody kills my bro's parrot!" Jason yells. He aims his gun for the Praetor and fires away, not even bothering to preserve ammo.

The Praetor fires back, but Jason's in a fight-or-flight fit of rage, and he's chosen to fight. Piper braces herself; it's moments like these where everything seems great until Jason comes down with another one of his notorious head injuries.

But Jason persists!

And then the Praetor shoots his gun right out of his hand. It's like she isn't trying to hit him directly. Maybe she only wants to disarm him.

Nevertheless, Jason is defenseless, and there's no guarantee that this mysterious opponent is going to let him—or any of the group, for that matter—walk away from this confrontation. "Hey, listen," Jason starts, walking closer to the Praetor. "I didn't mean—Oh, shit!"

He trips over a puddle of paint on the tile, falling head over heels and landing on his back. His head—oh, his poor abused head—smacks against the floor with a CRACK!

"Jason!" Piper yells, abandoning the duel to attend to her fallen friend.

"Are you okay?" Annabeth asks, rushing to meet them on the ground. She unwraps the red bandana from her hair and feels Jason's head with it, searching for any sign of blood.

The Praetor lowers her weapon and crouches down to get a better look at her victim. In a muffled voice, she asks, "Oh my god, is he okay?"

"He's prone to major concussions, dipshit," Annabeth replies. "He probably won't remember anything after the sub he ate for lunch yesterday!" That's true. One time, Jason cracked his forehead against a doorframe that was too short for him, and couldn't remember making out with Piper after the student government election. The good thing about his memory loss was that he forgot Piper accidentally bit his lip, but more concerningly, he still doesn't even remember running for student body president.

"Should I call 911?" The Praetor asks. For a complete menace to society, she sure is graceful under pressure.

Frank puts his hands on his hips. "If he doesn't get up, we'll have Percy do CPR and someone will call. Don't worry, we've done drills before in case this happens."

Jason gasps from the ground and sits up like he's been possessed by a ghost, and apparently, he's been possessed by the ghost of some gangster because he swipes Hazel's gun from her holster and fires it at the Praetor.

"Woah... Fake concussion... Didn't see that coming," she says, examining the blue spot on her leather corset. Piper prays to the fashion gods that it won't be too hard for her to get that stain out because it's a really cute top.

The Praetor pulls her bandana below her chin and takes a sip of water from a canteen hanging from her belt. "Good game, but it's only getting harder from here."

"What do you mean?" Piper asks.

"Reyna?" Jason asks, still dazed.

Reyna purses her lips. "Hate to break it to ya, buddy, but you're literally the last person to find out I transferred here."

"Oh, I-"

"See ya around, 'Beth." The Praetor—Reyna—winks at Annabeth, twists her tricorne hat below her eye, and saunters out into the picnic area.

"Jason," Percy says, "that was amazing!"

Everyone rushes to crowd Jason because why wouldn't you want to congratulate an underdog hero? Everyone takes turns giving Jason hugs, but by the time they've all exchanged sweat, something's wrong.

"Where's Hazel?" Frank asks.

"Check the throne— I mean, office chair," Jason says.

"I'll go check the bathroom," Annabeth offers.

Piper looks around in a daze, knowing already that her friends' efforts are pointless.

Hazel Levesque has disappeared without a trace, and nobody noticed.